1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method for navigating, presenting, and interacting with information in on-line computer systems.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Existing approaches to distributed, multi-user information systems (i.e., World-Wide Web WWW) are primarily textual in nature and remain to a large extent for experienced computer users. While text is a good method of describing information, it is not the best way to access, present or navigate through information. For example, web pages on the Internet today consist mostly of two dimensional text and images. An example of a 2D web page is the United States Patent Office home page located at "http://www.uspto.gov".
To navigate through the information, the user is presented with a "web page" containing a number of textual items that they must read and choose between. Once the user makes a selection by clicking on a "hot-link" (i.e., highlighted text) a new web-page appears containing another set of choices and the process is repeated. One problem with this approach is that it is very difficult for the user to see the overall organization or structure of the information. If the information has a hierarchical structure, the practical limits of this navigational approach is only a few thousand items. Beyond this, either the number of choices on the screen become excessive or the search depth becomes so deep that users become frustrated and lost.
In these systems, individual users are often unaware of the presence of others in the information space. The model for on-line services is primarily the time-sharing virtual machine model where each user is made to think that they are the only person using the machine. The resulting sense of isolation is in contrast to people's everyday experience of sensing and gathering information as a public, social experience.